The Arizona Fall League season wrapped up nearly a month ago now, but the various Caribbean winter league seasons are still going strong. Here are some minor league notes, including a pair of injury updates, before we get to the performance updates:

OF Clint Frazier (concussion) has resumed baseball activities, he announced on Twitter. Hooray for that. Here’s some video. Frazier said he’s been at it for a few weeks now and that is good news. Seems to me he’s on track to be a full participant in Spring Training.

RHP Ben Heller (Tommy John surgery) either has started throwing off a mound as part of his rehab or will begin doing so shortly, according to his Twitter feed. Heller had surgery to repair his elbow ligament and also remove a bone spur from his elbow in April. He’s probably looking at a May or June return to game action.

Triple-A Scranton will host the 2020 Triple-A All-Star Game at PNC Field, the team announced. It is the second Triple-A All-Star Game in Scranton and the first since the ballpark was renovated in 2012. Scranton hosted the 1995 Triple-A All-Star Game as a Phillies affiliate.

At the moment the Yankees are a little more than halfway through their offseason. It has been 68 days since their ALDS Game Four loss and there are 58 days to go until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. Hooray for being closer to Spring Training than the ALDS. Baseball is approaching.

The Yankees have been fairly busy this offseason, most notably adding James Paxton and re-signing several players (Brett Gardner, J.A. Happ, CC Sabathia). They also added some depth pieces through waiver claims and minor trades. Still on the offseason to-do list is find a Didi Gregorius replacement and also bolster the bullpen. That’s the short version. There are still other needs as well.

With the Winter Meetings over and the Yankees slightly more than halfway through their offseason, I figured this was as good a time as any to take a step back and examine the current state of the roster. The projected 25-man Opening Day roster, that is. Here’s what we know right now:

That is a sneaky number of OPEN spots! I count seven. Four in the bullpen, two on the bench, and one at either second base or shortstop. The Yankees of course have in-house options for those seven OPEN spots and, in some cases, the in-house options are preferable to spending on a back of the roster player(s). Why spend money on a utility infielder who is no lock to perform better than Wade or Albert or Locastro, you know?

There are 18 healthy players on the 40-man roster who are not part of my projected big league roster in that table. We can drop those 18 players into one of five buckets. Let’s do exactly that.

1. Going to the minors (4). I think we can safely assume Abreu, Acevedo, Higashioka, and Estrada are going to begin 2019 in the minors. Higashioka is the third catcher and both Abreu and Acevedo have development remaining. They’re not MLB ready. Estrada missed basically the entire 2018 season with various injuries and needs to catch up on lost at-bats. The Yankees have plenty of other infield options.

2. Out of options (6). Six of those 18 players can not be sent to the minors next year without passing through waivers: Alberto, Bridwell, Cessa, Cole, German, and Kahnle. Chances are a few of these guys will be gone before Spring Training begins — the Yankees still have to open a 40-man spot for Happ, for example — but they’re on the roster right now, so they get dropped in this bucket.

Being out of options does not guarantee a player an MLB roster spot but it can be a tiebreaker. If, for example, the final bench spot comes down to Alberto or Wade, it could go to Alberto because he can’t be sent down and Wade can. Give the Yankees a truth serum and I think they’d tell you they want German (long man/spot starter) and Kahnle (middle reliever) to shove in Spring Training and grab bullpen spots. But, if Bridwell or Cessa or Cole appear to be better options, then they’ll get the Opening Day bullpen assignments.

3. Other bullpen candidates (4). Adams, Harvey, Loaisiga, and Tarpley are bullpen candidates in addition to those out-of-options arms. Tarpley strikes me as most likely to win an Opening Day roster spot simply based on the fact he impressed enough in September to get an ALDS roster spot. Also, he and Chapman are the only lefty relievers on the 40-man roster, and Chapman’s the closer. He’s not going to be brought into a sixth inning matchup situation. Left-on-left relievers are largely disappearing from baseball, but Tarpley could crack the Opening Day roster.

Tarpley. (Getty)

My hunch is the Yankees want Loaisiga to go to Triple-A to begin next year. He impressed in his four-start cameo this summer (not so much in September) but the kid has never pitched in Triple-A and he has 196 career innings to his credit. I don’t think the Yankees would hesitate to carry Loaisiga in their bullpen next year if he’s one of their best options — he has a scary injury history and you might as well get whatever you can out of him before he gets hurt again — but, in a perfect world, they’d be able to send him to Triple-A for more tune-up work.

Adams and Harvey are straight up bullpen candidates. Surely the Yankees hope to have better options come Spring Training, but, if they don’t, Adams and especially Harvey could win bullpen jobs. Adams might be at a disadvantage given his ability to start. The Yankees could send him to Triple-A to remain stretched out as the sixth starter and go with someone else in the bullpen. Adams wouldn’t be the first guy to lose out on a big league bullpen gig because the team wants stash him in Triple-A as a starter.

4. Second base/shortstop options (2). Assuming Estrada is indeed ticketed for Triple-A, the top in-house second base/shortstop candidates aside from Alberto are Locastro and Wade. I expect the Yankees to add a middle infielder at some point between now and Spring Training, but, if they don’t, those are the internal options. Locastro and Wade (and Alberto). Seeing how Wade was the Opening Day second basemen this year, and Locastro is more of an outfielder who can play second base than the other way around, I think Wade would be the guy right now. If the season started today, Wade and Gleyber Torres would be the starting middle infielders. That’s what I think.

5. Other bench candidates (2). We’re down to two names: Bird and Frazier. Two former top prospects who have lost a lot of time to injuries in recent years. We know all about Bird’s problems. Last year’s oblique injury and this year’s concussion issues have limited Frazier to 745 plate appearances and 182 total games the last two years. That’s a real bummer. Had he been healthy this past season, Clint could’ve filled in for Judge in August and who knows, perhaps he plays well enough to win the 2019 left field job outright and convince the Yankees to move on from Gardner.

As for Bird, gosh, I don’t know what the Yankees will do with him. Voit has clearly jumped him on the first base depth chart, but the Yankees do love Bird, and would it really shock anyone if they carried him on the bench next year? I mean, they did this year, right? It’s one thing to do it in August and just buy time until rosters expand on September 1st. It’s another to do it on Opening Day. The Yankees are an eight-man bullpen/three-man bench team and using two of those three bench spots on a backup catcher and a backup first baseman seems … unwise.

The x-factor here is Ellsbury. He’s coming back from major hip surgery and Brian Cashman is already hedging against Ellsbury being ready for Opening Day, but, if he is ready, he might get a bench spot by default. I think it is far more likely the Yankees will release Ellsbury than carry him on the roster next year, but what do I know? If he’s healthy and Frazier needs Triple-A time after all the injuries, carrying Ellsbury as the reserve outfielder could very well be in the cards. As for Gray, the other guy in limbo, he’s a goner. He’ll be traded at some point.

* * *

To me, Locastro is the under-the-radar guy to watch. He can play almost anywhere, he’s a .307/.402/.443 (128 wRC+) hitter in 471 career Triple-A plate appearances, he’s a great runner (169-for-208 career stealing bases, an 81% success rate), and he doesn’t strike out much (career 11.5% strikeouts). I’m not saying I want Locastro on the Opening Day roster. I’m just saying he’s currently the odds on favorite to be this year’s “no one expected him to make the team but he did” guy.

Anyway, we had seven OPEN spots in our original table and this is how I think the Yankees would fill them if the season started today, which thankfully it does not.

Catcher

Infielders

Outfielders

Rotation

Bullpen

Gary Sanchez

1B Voit

LF Gardner

Happ

CL Chapman

2B Torres/Wade

CF Hicks

Paxton

SU Betances

SS Torres/Wade

RF Judge

Sabathia

SU Green

3B Andujar

OF Stanton

Severino

MR Holder

BENCH

Tanaka

MR Kahnle

C Romine

DISABLED LIST

MR Tarpley

IF Alberto

Ellsbury

Heller

LG Cessa

UTIL Locastro

Gregorius

Montgomery

LG German

That leaves the out-of-options Bridwell and Cole out in the cold — the Yankees really seems to like Cessa — Loaisiga and Frazier getting regular playing time in Triple-A, and Bird in Scranton. As much as the Yankees like (or liked, once upon a time) Bird, I think they’re at the point where they need to see health and production before giving him a roster spot. That Voit is around as a viable first base alternative makes this even more likely.

Would the Yankees play Wade at second base and Torres at shortstop, or the other way around? Either way works, really. I think I’d prefer Wade at short and Torres at second because second base is Gleyber’s likely long-term position and he still has only 132 career games worth of experience at the position. My preference, whether the Yankees go internal with Wade (nah) or bring in a middle infielder from outside the organization (yup), is to keep Torres at second base. I’d have no problem with him at short. Second would be my preference though.

Anyway, this is all a very long way of me saying the Yankees still have some unresolved roster spots, maybe more than anyone realized. The middle infield is unsettled, two bench spots are unclaimed, and there are four open bullpen spots. It’s easy to see why the Yankees want two relievers, right? Yes, they can fill some of those spots internally and I’m sure they will. Filling all of them internally seems like a non-option though. The good news is there’s lots of offseason remaining. The bad news is the Yankees still have a sneaky large amount of work to do this winter.

Twenty-three different position players came to the plate at least once for the Yankees this year, and we here at River Avenue Blues endeavor to give you a little something about each and every one of them in this series of reviews. These are the guys that opened the season in the organization and, for a variety of reasons, ended up playing relatively minor roles.

Brandon Drury

The Yankees have acquired quite a bit of talent from the Diamondbacks over the last five years; so much so that a deal between the two teams feels like an automatic win for the good guys. They’ve made five deals in that span, with the Yankees acquiring Brandon McCarthy, Martin Prado, Didi Gregorius, Tyler Clippard, and Drury, and giving up Vidal Nuno, Peter O’Brien, Shane Greene, Vicente Campos, Taylor Widener, and Nick Solak (the last two in the deal for Drury). That’s 17.3 WAR in, and 3.4 WAR out, for those of you scoring at home.

But I digress.

Drury was acquired by the Yankees in February as a part of a three-team trade with the Rays and Diamondbacks. The aforementioned Solak went to Tampa, and Widener went to the desert; and both spent the entirety of 2018 at Double-A in their respective organizations. It’s worth noting that both performed well in Double-A, to be sure, but neither is a standout prospect.

For his part, Drury opened the season as the Yankees third baseman, starting seven of the team’s first eight games and pinch-hitting in the other. He hit a more than serviceable .217/.333/.391 (101 wRC+) in that span, and it seemed as though the team had found a perfectly adequate infielder. And when he was placed on the disabled list with migraines on April 7, he was expected back in relatively short order.

It didn’t work out that way, of course. Miguel Andujar took over at the hot corner in Drury’s absence, and hit the ground running. And when Drury’s stint on the disabled list was over on May 14, he was optioned to Triple-A Scranton, where he would spend the next six-plus weeks tearing the cover off of the ball. It was clear that he didn’t belong there, but it was also clear that they didn’t have room for him on the big club.

Drury was called back up on June 29, and bounced around the infield for ten days before being sent back down. He only hit .136/.174/.182 in that stretch, so it was difficult to fault the Yankees. He came back up on July 20, and was essentially done as a Yankee on July 24, when he exited the game after being hit in the hand with a pitch. Drury was dealt to the Blue Jays (along with Billy McKinney) for J.A. Happ a couple of days later.

All told, Drury hit .176/.263/.275 (49 wRC+) in 57 PA in pinstripes. Injuries and superior options at second and third base hindered his chances of finding a role with the team before he really had a chance, and his bags were packed at the deadline. He followed that up by hitting .154/.241/.231 (33 wRC+) with the Blue Jays, albeit in just 29 PA as his season ended early due to a fracture in his left hand.

Clint Frazier

(Duane Burleson/Getty)

The 2017-18 off-season could not have been much fun for Frazier, who spent his time seeing his name in trade rumors, recovering from an oblique injury, and getting a much-publicized haircut. And seeing the Yankees add Giancarlo Stanton to an already crowded outfield picture was probably a bit disconcerting, as well. I don’t want to editorialize too much, but I can’t help but feel that he was relieved to start playing baseball again when February rolled around.

Unfortunately, Spring Training wasn’t any better, as Frazier suffered a concussion after crashing into the outfield wall, and missed the first several weeks of the season as a result. He was activated from the disabled list on May 1 and optioned to Triple-A, where he hit .362/.423/.702 in 52 PA before being called-up for a double-header on May 19. He started one game, going 1-for-2 with two walks, and was sent back down to Triple-A.

Frazier spent the next two months bouncing between Triple-A and the show; he obliterated the minor leagues, posting a .311/.389/.574 slash line in 216 PA, and was adequate in 41 big league PA, posting a 113 wRC+. Unfortunately, the lingering post-concussion effects never really let up, and his season was over in August. And given how mightily the Yankees struggled to fill the void left by Aaron Judge’s injury, Frazier missed a big opportunity, to boot.

Frazier’s status is one of the low-key but still important storylines of this off-season. He’s still only 24 with oodles of talent, but he hasn’t been able to stay healthy over the last two years, and concussions are tricky at best. Moreover, the Yankees still have a crowded outfield, even if Brett Gardner hadn’t re-signed. Frazier is ostensibly healthy and resting now, but this may well be another winter of trade rumors.

Kyle Higashioka

(Mike Stobe/Getty)

Higashioka entered the 2018 season as the team’s third-string catcher, and the expectation that he wouldn’t have much of anything to do in the majors this year barring some calamity. There was a calamity, of sorts, in Gary Sanchez’s injury-riddled and disappointing season, which resulted in Higashioka spending about three months on the Yankees roster. Unfortunately for him, that meant a lot of sitting on the bench if deference to Austin Romine.

The 28-year-old backstop spent most of the first three months of the season in Triple-A, where he struggled mightily. He slashed just .196/.272/.337 through 52 games, which was a far cry from his strong performances there in 2016 (131 wRC+) and 2017 (113 wRC+). There was no clear path to playing time for Higashioka for most of this time, and he certainly wasn’t forcing the issue.

When Sanchez hit the disabled list with a groin injury on June 25, Higashioka was called-up. He served in a timeshare with Romine, starting nine of the team’s nineteen games in this stretch, and he slashed an intriguing .167/.242/.500 in 33 PA. Higashioka had the first three hits of his major-league career during this stint … all of which were home runs.

Higashioka was sent back down when Sanchez returned from the DL, and was recalled when Sanchez aggravated the groin injury a few days later. He’d go on to spend the rest of the season with the team, picking up eleven more starts along the way. Higashioka finished the season hitting .167/.241/.319 (51 wRC+) in 79 PA.

There were some reasons to be excited about Higashioka after his dominance of Triple-A in 2016, but that ship has likely sailed at this point. He’ll be 29 in April, and the team clearly prefers Romine off of the bench. That doesn’t mean that he can’t be a useful bench piece – it just might not be for the Yankees.

Billy McKinney

(Joel Auerbach/Getty)

McKinney was acquired alongside Gleyber Torres way back in 2016, and was poised for a real opportunity with the Yankees when Frazier, Aaron Hicks, and Jacoby Ellsbury went down with injuries. He earned his first big league start (and hit) on March 30 … and was placed on the DL with a left shoulder strain after crashing into the wall on March 31.

By the time McKinney was activated on May 24, the Yankees outfield rotation was set, and he headed to Triple-A. He flashed some power there, slashing .226/.299/.495 (120 wRC+) with 13 HR in 234 PA, but his tenure with the team ended before he could claw his way back to the majors when he was sent to Toronto in the Happ trade.

McKinney spent his first month with his new organization in the minors, but he was called-up on August 18 (against the Yankees), and spent the rest of the year starting for the Blue Jays. He hit .252/.320/.470 (114 wRC+) in 128 PA down the stretch, and should have one of the corner outfield spots locked-up for 2019.

Jace Peterson

Not-so-great baserunning, Jace. (Jim McIsaac/Getty)

Peterson spent a whopping 112 days in the Yankees organization, a tenure that included one game in Triple-A and three at the highest level. That was long enough to have a play for the team’s highlight reels, though, in the form of this excellent catch against the Orioles:

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Peterson was claimed off of waivers by those same Orioles on April 24, and his Yankees career was over. He did hit .300 with the team, though (in 11 PA), so he has something to tell his grandchildren one day.

The 28-year-old utility player did find a good home in Baltimore, though, playing all over the field and appearing in 93 games. He hit just .195/.308/.325, but he stole 13 bases in 15 attempts … so, there’s that.

Shane Robinson

(Patrick McDermott/Getty)

The aforementioned injuries to Clint Frazier, Ellsbury, and Judge as well as the trade of McKinney paved the way for Robinson to make 17 starts for the Yankees this year. That in and of itself is a fine argument both for how necessary depth is, and how quickly it can disappear. And it haunts me to this day.

Robinson was signed by the Yankees way back in February to serve as Triple-A depth. When he was signed, he was something like ninth or tenth on the organization’s outfield depth chart, and for good reason. The now-34-year-old was a Quadruple-A player, having spent the previous eight years as an up-and-down guy for the Cardinals, Twins, and Angels, racking up a .226/.294/.297 line in 795 PA along the way. He’s the sort of player every organization needs, but doesn’t really want to see at the highest level.

He was called-up in early April for a two-game cup of coffee, going 1-for-3 with two walks in two games before being sent back down. He spent the rest of April through late-July in Triple-A (and missing all of June), posting a .628 OPS in 192 PA. But Judge’s injury and McKinney’s trade mere days beforehand forced the Yankees hand, and Robinson was recalled on July 28.

Robinson played in 23 of the team’s Judge-less games, starting sixteen. He hit .130/.167/.217 in that time, which thankfully (mercifully?) came to an end when Andrew McCutchen was acquired on August 31. Robinson spent the rest of the season in purgatory, and became a free agent on October 10.

Eight Yankees became free agents earlier this week but only Sabathia was eligible for the qualifying offer. The other seven were either acquired at midseason or had previously received the qualifying offer, and were thus ineligible. Sabathia played for $10M this year and could be re-signed at a similar rate next year, so of course the Yankees didn’t make the qualifying offer. Sabathia would take that $17.9M in an instant.

As for Alberto, the 26-year-old is a classic utility infielder type who stands out on defense but hasn’t hit a whole lot at the MLB level. He did put up a .330/.346/.452 (106 wRC+) batting line with seven homers and hilariously low strikeout (7.3%) and walk (2.3%) rates in Triple-A this year though. Alberto has played all four infield positions as well as right field. Consider him in the reserve infielder mix come Spring Training.

I should note Alberto is out of minor league options, so he’ll have to pass through waivers to go to Triple-A next year. If there’s a roster crunch the Yankees could try to slip him through outright waivers later this offseason and keep him in the organization as a non-40-man roster player. I imagine that won’t happen until after the Yankees find a more viable Didi Gregorius replacement, if it happens at all. Point is, Alberto is a depth pickup and will not necessarily stick around for the long haul.

The 60-day DL activations are procedural. There’s no disabled list in the offseason so those four guys had to be activated. The Yankees had eight free agents come off the 40-man roster earlier this week. The four 60-day DL activations plus the Alberto claim mean the Yankees now have 37 players on the 40-man roster. (Brett Gardner stayed on the 40-man roster when he re-signed.) The Rule 5 Draft protection deadline is November 20th, which will soak up some 40-man spots.

It would be wrong to call Clint Frazier’s concussion and post-concussion migraines the most costly injuries of the 2018 season for the Yankees. I mean, this is a team that lost Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez for roughly two months each, plus Jordan Montgomery was limited to only six starts. Those were some truly devastating injuries.

Frazier’s injuries were costly though. No doubt. Aaron Hicks got hurt on Opening Day and, nine games into the season, Jace Peterson was starting in left field. The Yankees went through August with Neil Walker and Shane Robinson playing right field. That was all playing time that could’ve gone to Frazier had he been healthy.

Instead, the injuries limited Frazier to 283 plate appearances (242 in the minors and 41 in MLB) and basically none after July 19th. For all intents and purposes, Frazier’s season started in early May and ended at the All-Star break. The .311/.389/.574 (170 wRC+) batting line in Triple-A was good to see. It’s unfortunate he couldn’t play more.

Frazier missing so much time was costly and the ramifications of those injuries will continue to be felt this offseason. Rather than get a chance to prove himself at the MLB level this year, Clint missed all that time, which meant the Yankees headed into the winter with:

Uncertainty as to whether Frazier could hold down the left field job next year.

A trade chip with diminished value. Who’s paying full price for Frazier now?

To be clear, I’m not blaming Frazier for his injuries. I’d never blame a player for an injury unless it was a dumb and avoidable off-the-field injury, like falling asleep in a tanning bed. Clint originally got hurt crashing into the outfield wall in Spring Training. It happens. Outfielders crash into walls. Most make it out okay. Some get hurt. That’s baseball.

I’m just saying Frazier’s injuries hurt the Yankees during the regular season and they’ve already thrown a wrench into the offseason. As I mentioned earlier, Brett Gardner might not have been re-signed had Frazier been healthy this year. The left field job could’ve been his. Instead, the Yankees couldn’t pencil Clint into an outfield spot next year, so they needed a stopgap, hence Gardner’s return.

Also, with Frazier not 100% physically and teams having not seen him on the field in several months now, it’s hard to see him being the centerpiece in a trade for a pitcher. Clint’s awesome, but if I were another team I sure as heck wouldn’t take him as the headliner in a trade for someone like, say, Jon Gray. Would I try to buy low on him? Hell yes. Would I pay full price for him? Nope.

The best course of action — maybe the only course of action — is letting Frazier get healthy this winter and planning as if he’ll be a non-factor next year. Anything he gives you in 2019 is a bonus. If he contributes and takes over left field full-time at some point, great! The Yankees have to plan for the worst though, right? That’s why Gardner was re-signed. It’s easier to find an outfielder now in the offseason than during the season.

“(Frazier is) home recovering,” Brian Cashman said to Randy Miller a few weeks ago. “He’s still under the care of Dr. Mickey Collins (in Pittsburgh). But onward and upward. Doing better. According to Dr. Collins, he’ll be fully recovered well before Spring Training.”

Given the nature of the injury, the priority here is Clint’s health. Concussions can have a lasting impact on quality of life. There is also a baseball angle the Yankees have to consider, and with Gardner back in the fold, that refers to Frazier’s trade value. Getting an impact pitcher could be that much more difficult without him healthy. The Yankees didn’t have Frazier when they needed him during the season. Now they basically have to plan their offseason without him.

It’s been more than a month since our last minor league update, and now that the Arizona Fall League season is underway and the various Caribbean winter leagues are starting to get going, it’s time for a check-in. Here are some notes to get us started.

OF Clint Frazier (post-concussion migraines) is back home in Georgia and resting, Brian Cashman told Brendan Kuty. Well, Clint was in New York this week, but point is he’s doing better. Cashman said Frazier will be recovered in time for the start of Spring Training.

Jonathan Mayo put together a list of 20 pitching prospects who improved their stock in 2018 and three are Yankees: Sheffield, Loaisiga, and RHP Garrett Whitlock. “(Whitlock) finished third in the Minors with his 1.86 ERA and had a combined .214 BAA and 9.1 K/9 while touching Double-A,” says the write-up.

The MLB.com crew listed one AzFL sleeper prospect for each team. RHP Matt Wivinis is the pick for the Yankees. “He works with a pair of high-spin breaking balls he’ll throw in any count, and his curveball and slider help his low-90s fastball play up,” says the write-up.

Rob Terranova has more on Wivinis, if you’re interested in learning about the former independent leaguer. The 25-year-old managed a 2.41 ERA (2.81 FIP) with 34.5% strikeouts and 6.7% walks in 56 relief innings at three levels this past season.

Arizona Fall League

IF Thairo Estrada: 6 G, 4-for-25, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 5 K, 1 CS (.160/.192/.160) — hip and back trouble ended his regular season on May 7th … he’s healthy enough to play now though, so that’s good

1B Steven Sensley: 7 G, 5-for-25, 1 R, 2 2B, 3 RBI, 1 BB, 7 K (.200/.259/.280) — he’s played four games at first base and three at DH … he started only one of his final 34 regular season games in the outfield, so I guess he’s a full-time first baseman now … either way, he was always going to be a bat first prospect, but the outfield is always preferable to first base

Anyway, holy cow Aaron Judge is back! That was a nice surprise. I mean, he’s technically been back for a few days now, but now he’s back in the starting lineup. The wrist is feeling good and Judge has 13 games to get back up to speed at the plate. Is that enough time? I sure hope so. Glad the big guy is back either way. Here are tonight’s lineups:

The rain stopped a few hours ago and things will be clear for the game tonight. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05pm ET and you can watch on WPIX locally and MLB Network nationally. Also, you can watch on Facebook Live as well. Enjoy the game.

Injury Update: Judge (wrist) took simulated at-bats again today — he faced minor league righty Adonis Rosa, who Aaron Boone said was selected to pitch to Judge because the Yankees are comfortable with his command — and was deemed ready to hit in games. Here’s video of a simulated home run. Interestingly enough, Boone said Judge wouldn’t have been in the lineup for the original 1pm ET start. The delay gave them time to evaluate him and feel good about where he’s at … Aroldis Chapman (knee) feels good after yesterday’s simulated game and could be activated as soon as tomorrow.

Roster Moves: Welcome to the big leagues, Justus Sheffield. He was officially called up earlier today and is wearing No. 61. Clint Frazier was transferred to the 60-day DL to clear a 40-man roster spot. Domingo German was called up as well. The Yankees are up to 36 players on the active roster (19 pitchers, 17 position players). Aroldis Chapman (disabled list), Albert Abreu, Domingo Acevedo, and Thairo Estrada are the only 40-man roster players not on the active MLB roster right now.

Roster Note:This morning I mentioned A.J. Cole hasn’t pitched in eleven games. Turns out he spent some time away from the team to be with his wife, who gave birth to their first child. He’s back with the team now. The Yankees never bothered to put Cole on paternity leave because there’s no point with rosters expanded. Congrats to the Coles.